About: Yilin Wendland-Liu is the new director of the Adult Tutoring Program. She joined the Literacy Center of West Michigan on August 24, 2020. Before her new role as the ATP director, she taught at Grand Valley State University as a visiting professor for three years and served as the Grand Rapids Chinese Language School Principal for two and a half years. Yilin currently serves on the Grand Rapids International Network Committee (GRIN) and Grand Rapids Community Foundation Scholarship Selection Committee. 

Hobbies: Yilin lives in Grand Rapids with her husband and two children. In her free time, she enjoys taking walks in the wonderful West Michigan parks and along the lakes, exploring the world through travel and food, and spending quality time with her family and friends. 

Favorite part of the job: The power of literacy called Yilin to her current role, and how to gift learners with this power so that it helps remove barriers in their professional, communal, and familial life makes her job challenging and yet meaningful. Her favorite part of the job is to connect with learners and learn about their unique journeys, and she always looks forward to hearing their accomplishments empowered by literacy skills gained during their time at the Literacy Center of West Michigan. Every day, she strives to live by the wise words from Mahatma Gandhi, “…If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do….”